He had no choice but to confront his assailants. It never entered his mind that there was only one. He assumed it had to be a planned operation by professionals. He stationed his remaining two men—one aft on the stern deck between the hulls, the other on the forward deck. After requesting Lo Han to turn on the lights, he spotted several people stumbling out of the water onto the lake bank. Then to add disaster to catastrophe, he recognized them as the immigrants who were supposed to be drowned. He went rigid in astonishment. How could they have escaped? Impossible unless they had help. It had to be a special force of trained agents, he thought wildly.

Qin Shang would surely order him sent to the bottom of the lake if he didn't capture the escaped immigrants before they reached American authorities. In the light from across the lake, Chu Deng counted nearly a dozen men and women and two children staggering and crawling from the water's edge toward a forest of trees. Caught up in fear of a short future and without regard to the circumstances, Chu Deng turned the catamaran directly toward a low bank running along the shoreline.

"There they are!" he screamed wildly to the enforcer on the forward deck. "Shoot them, shoot them before they reach the trees!"

He stared mesmerized as his man on the forward platform of the catamaran raised his weapon and stood watching as if a film was running in slow motion when a dark form rose out of the water in front of the boat like some abominable creature out of a nightmare. The enforcer suddenly stiffened, dropping the machine pistol and clutching his shoulder. Seconds later an ugly barb suddenly protruded from the enforcer's left eye. Chu Deng froze in bewildered shock as his enforcer tumbled into the cold waters of the lake.

There are many advantages to a craft with catamaran twin hulls. Repelling boarders is not one of them. A boat with a single high bow is next to impossible to climb aboard, much less to find a means of hanging on to the hull. But the straight-across platform deck forward of the main cabin and wheel-house sat only fourteen inches above the water, making it relatively simple for a person in the water to grab hold of the leading edge.

Propelled by the Stingray, Pitt burst free of the water just as the black boat was about to run him down. With timing based more on luck than expertise, he cast off the propulsion vehicle, threw up one arm and clamped it over the edge of the forward deck. The shock of the rapidly moving boat as it abruptly jerked his body through the water felt as if his arm was torn from its socket. Fortunately, it remained in place, and Pitt shot the man who was aiming a machine pistol at the people on shore before he could pull the trigger. In three seconds, Pitt had reloaded and fired a barb that punched upward through the man's eye, penetrating his brain.